New Jersey's six-day black bear hunt begins Monday in four areas of what is known as "bear country," the northern parts of the state where black bears are most prevalent.

The hunting sections include Warren County and part of Hunterdon County. Sussex and parts of Somerset, Passaic and Bergen counties are also included. The season kicks off just as Pennsylvania's bear hunting window comes to a close.

"There's a place for bears in New Jersey," said Larry Ragonese, press director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. "It's just not in your home."

The hunt aims to decrease encounters between humans and bears, he said.

This is the third year that the hunt is being held under the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife's Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy, a five-year plan for managing the bear population.

Studies place the bruin population in New Jersey's bear country at about 2,900, down from 3,400 to 3,500 three years ago, he said.

Pennsylvania's statewide bear hunting season ended Wednesday but lasts in certain areas until Saturday, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. By day three of the four-day hunt, 2,442 bears were harvested throughout the state.

The hope in New Jersey is that the decline in the bear population makes encounters between humans and bears rare, Ragonese said. At the end of the five-year period, the department will decide its next management steps, which includes the fate of the bear hunt.

"There's no magic number," he said. "It's the impact on the human population. It's always kind of a balance that you have to figure out."

Animal rights groups have bristled at New Jersey's hunt each year. The Bear Education and Resource Group plans one protest on the first day of the hunt and another Dec. 8.

"You can't call this a hunt," said Susan Russell, a wildlife policy specialist for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey and the Bear Education and Resource Group. "It's a bait and shoot."

Baiting, which often employs piles of vegetables, carcasses, honey and rancid meat, lures bruins from the wild into communities, conditioning the animals to associate humans with easy food, Russell said.

The DEP prohibits the practice in National Wildlife Refuges and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area.

The key to controlling bear-human interactions is to improve human behaviors, she said. "Bear-proof" garbage containers are encouraged by the DEP but not required. A bill that bans unintentional bear feeding and requires bear-resistant Dumpsters in certain locations was recently introduced to the state Assembly.